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Please tell me that's a joke. If they took the time to remodel the bathrooms and put in another trough they need their head examined.

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Agreed. This looks like an awkward nod to the Skeller legacy. Some things were bound to change with a remodeling of the space. Removing the troughs was probably a good change, IMO. Nobody...nobody....needs the smell of hot. steamy man urine filling their nostrils in a public bathroom.

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That's a real nice trough. Kudos to them. As you can see, you need the floor drain for all the men who are so blind drunk they can't hit the trough. Or can't manage to get their zippers open so they just pee down their pants leg. Just making it to the bathroom should be worth 75% credit these days. A lot of students can't even do that -- public urination is becoming more and more normal in State College.

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so has anybody ever heard of this. I was talking to a guy this weekend that grew up in Philly. He said there was an old bar that was sort of a VFW type bar that had a essentially a trough on the floor at the base of the bar so guys didn't have to get up from their bar stool to take a piss. this i guess was done in the 50's and 60's and was still at the bar but no longer in use. so literally while sitting at the bar, they could whip it out, take a piss on the floor as the floor had about a 6" wide by 3" deep trough in it that sloped down to the end of the bar where there was a drain. the bartender would occasionally turn on the water that would flush that trough out.

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so has anybody ever heard of this. I was talking to a guy this weekend that grew up in Philly. He said there was an old bar that was sort of a VFW type bar that had a essentially a trough on the floor at the base of the bar so guys didn't have to get up from their bar stool to take a piss. this i guess was done in the 50's and 60's and was still at the bar but no longer in use. so literally while sitting at the bar, they could whip it out, take a piss on the floor as the floor had about a 6" wide by 3" deep trough in it that sloped down to the end of the bar where there was a drain. the bartender would occasionally turn on the water that would flush that trough out.

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The guy has his story slightly confused. Yes some old pubs (prohibition era not 50's) were built with troughs at the base of the bar. But the troughs weren't there for customers to piss into. The troughs were there to act as spittoons. If you are ever in Hollidaysburg, check out the U.S. Hotel Tavern. They still have a trough. If it's a slow night, they might even turn it on for you.

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so has anybody ever heard of this. I was talking to a guy this weekend that grew up in Philly. He said there was an old bar that was sort of a VFW type bar that had a essentially a trough on the floor at the base of the bar so guys didn't have to get up from their bar stool to take a piss. this i guess was done in the 50's and 60's and was still at the bar but no longer in use. so literally while sitting at the bar, they could whip it out, take a piss on the floor as the floor had about a 6" wide by 3" deep trough in it that sloped down to the end of the bar where there was a drain. the bartender would occasionally turn on the water that would flush that trough out.

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Someone else from Reading might know for sure, but I thought that Stanley's in Reading had a setup like that way back when. Stanley's was a shot-and-a-beer bar frequented by working class folk and women weren't allowed in the bar area. It's now closed, believe it or not.

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Just to set the record straight, since I think the message attached to the original photo was missed by many. There isn't a trough in the Skeller any longer. Duke took it out when he remodeled the urinals a couple of years ago. The picture in the thread was taken at a bar in Germany not State College.

The Skeller had a soft opening last night. The Troskos are doing a very nice job cleaning the place up. They aren't changing the basic atmosphere of the place but are doing many basic infrastructure changes to make the joint better. For example, they're lowered the backs of the booths, so that you can see out the windows onto Pugh Street (also cleaned the windows so you can see through them). The base of the booths have been replaced because they were rotting away but the benches that you sit on remain the same. The also knocked out an interior wall between the front bar and the pool table area making the bar much more wide open. The plans for the garden area out back look fantastic too (it's all bulldozed up right now but it looks like it will be ready for the fall).

They plan on continuing the remodeling work over the summer while they open up on weekends. Come fall, they hope to be open full time.